A state of siege / Janet Frame.

Novel by a New Zealand author.

Originally published: New York : G. Brazilier, 1966.

After the death of her invalid mother, Malfred Signal, a New Zealand art teacher in her mid fifties, leaves her birthplace in the south for a beach cottage on a sub-tropical island in the north. She hopes to be alone with nature and the "room two inches behind the eyes" - free of the dominating presence of her family, free of the habit of attaching "correct" shadows to coal scuttles and other mundane objects. But the solitude she has sought mocks her with echoes of her past, when, one stormy night, an intruder pounds ceaselessly and inexplicably on her door